One of those rare mornings when I wake up on the brink of afternoon time – my favorite because I get to skip a meal to plan – and we get to make brunch!!

Kel and I had a pretty good brunch yesterday at The Smile, and we decided to recreate it. I wanted a veggie version with spinach and broccoli and he was set on hot Italian sausage. While he was preparing all that, I made biscuits.

Oh no! This is turning into a monthly post blog <insert sad face here>. And I have no good excuses, because there are NEVER any good excuses for NOT making your own meals.

All preaching aside, tonight’s dinner was particularly memorable and post-worthy, mostly because I thought the pictures came out pretty good. Vibrant… semi-ok composition… succulent… you can almost taste the images! (That might just be me, with the bad habit of attempting to eat photographs.)

What do you do when you turn into an incompetent decision maker? Seafood… or meat? Why not have it all?!

Rack of lamb, lobster, and roasted asparagus

Oh heck yea. You sear the lamb on both sides, then roast at 450 for 10 mins and 350 until it reaches desired level of doneness.

For me, that means if I can’t gnaw on it still twitching, I’ll take something closer to rare.

Lobster – bright red and ready to join the party after a 15 minute soak in the tub on the stove.

Put an end to lazy Saturdays! Because those don’t generate mouth-watering dishes like this:

Off to a productive start – Kel had finished his morning run and the polish on my nails had just dried after a trip to the salon (my definition of productivity is obviously slightly different) – we met up at the supermarket. Two red skinned potatoes, one yam to substitute for sweet potato, a red onion, and a bunch of scallions. Working with the red pepper already sitting in the fridge, this breakfast cost less than $2.

Sweet Potato Hash

2 red skinned potatoes, 1 sweet potato – little cubes

1 red onion, diced

1 scallion, diced

1 red pepper, diced

2 eggs, poached

Boil the potatoes until tender, 10 minutes. Saute the onion and red pepper, then add potatoes. Spread it out in a thin layer so you can get that sizzle and browning on the bottom. Stir occasionally and add the scallions, salt and pepper. Get someone who is good at poaching eggs to work their magic.

The crab was salted on the shell, which I’ve never noticed anywhere else before. That little bit of detail made it taste all the more amazing.

Looks like someone got the to the dessert before my camera did, but trust my description: this was a deliciously playful plating of 2 cubes of bread pudding, alternated with semifreddo discs and smears of chocolate. I’m looking forward to trying more of the menu next time.

With any bit of desire to frolick in a blizzard stamped out by a mysterious sickness which kept me in bed most of Sunday, I hobbled over to the kitchen every 30 minutes to stir the pot of homemade chicken soup.

Check out that gorgeous clear brown color – a good sign of a delicious Chinese style chicken soup. Also ridiculously simple.

Only a few ingredients – chicken, dried mushrooms, dried goji berries, napa cabbage, and daikon. I love using dried mushrooms because their concentrated flavor really adds to the chicken soup. Daikon is not something my mom would normally toss into chicken based soup, but I had a craving for the soft texture of it, and goji berries add a bit of sweetness.

Chinese Chicken Soup

fresh chicken

ginger, 2 slices

scallion, 1 stalk (do scallions come in stalks?)

2 handfuls of dried shitake mushrooms

couple handfuls of dried goji berries

1 daikon, peeled and sliced 1/2″thick

napa cabbage

Rinse the chicken and submerge in pot full of water. When it comes to a boil, pour it out, and submerge the chicken in a fresh pot of water. Add ginger and scallion, bring to a boil. Skim fat occasionally, and add mushrooms, daikon and goji berries. Allow the soup to simmer for about an hour, then add cabbage when you are almost dying of hunger. (Cabbage doesn’t need to be cooked for all that long.)

The soup was so magical, I was cured the next day! Just in time to dress up my cat in an elf costume while bumming around at home on a snow day.